When The A.V. Club first reported on the existence of @Nihilist_Arbys, the hilariously misanthropic parody account was becoming a hot topic for fans of weird Twitter. In the months since the account launched, it’s continued to captivate by dousing its darkness in delicious horsey sauce. Last week, The A.V. Club received a message from the Gmail account linked to the account, containing a cryptic message and a rather strange video:
In fitting with the established tone of Nihilist Arby’s, the video raises more questions than it answers. It opens with the statement, “I was born out of an infinite blackness,” and it’s immediately apparent that voice belongs to The Lawrence Arms’ Brendan Kelly. As it continues, Kelly can be seen espousing nihilist philosophy, drinking, and eating Arby’s, but the video doesn’t give any definitive proof as to whether or not he’s the person behind the roast beef-fueled parody. Kelly’s no stranger to absurdism—as his Twitter account and long dormant blog often deal in such fare—but it’s a question that’s gone unanswered, just like so many of Nihilist Arby’s quandaries.
Is Kelly just the mouthpiece for the account’s meat-fueled manifesto, or the one behind it all? What does the video mean? Is watching it just a reminder of our increasing disconnect from the world around us? Do we only know comfort through the acceptance of not knowing? The A.V. Club: We eat at Arby’s.